My Sweetheart
by JennieMac
Summary: For anyone who's ever been in the wrong corner of a love triangle: from the perspective of a much maligned character.


…_Everybody loves my sweetheart_

_everybody loves my boy_

_All the other girls wish they had his heart_

_All the other girls want to take away my joy…_

-from "My Sweetheart" copyright 2004 by Lori McKenna/Paper Wings Music

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I do not own any of these characters; just borrowing.

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**My Sweetheart**

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I wrote to my sister, Violet, last week, and the first line of the letter was, _I have never been so happy._

And it's true.

I missed him so much over the break! I think my parents got a little sick of hearing about Ron, Ron, Ron, because every time I would mention him those last few days, they would send me outside to feed the rabbits. One of the rabbits just had babies (what else is new, right?), and they were soooooo cute. I wrote to Ron about them. Actually I wrote him almost every day during break, and as I expected he didn't answer all that often, but as Parvati says, he's a boy, they don't do that.

Violet says the same thing. She and I have shared a room for so many years now, it's going to be weird when she moves out next fall. But she can't very well share a room with me when she's married and working in the city, can she? Ron says his brother's getting married this summer too, if his Mum and Ginny can't break it up first, that is. I already know what I'm wearing to that wedding! And of course I know what I'm wearing to Violet's wedding because I'm a bridesmaid.

Violet reckons I shouldn't have written to Ron every day like I did, but we had sort-of made plans to see each other over break and then he seemed to forget about it, because I never heard from him. Violet said, "Well, why can't he just, you know, what's it called, when you disappear and then travel…" And I said, "Apparate?" And she said, "Yeah, that. Why can't he just Apparate over here?" And I told her we're not of age yet (though I will be next month!) and you need a license to Apparate, like driving. And she just shrugged and said, "Oh."

Anyway, I had a good Christmas, but it was sooooo great to come back to school and see Ron again! But it was nerve wracking, too: when he first came back into the Common Room he was with Harry and Granger like always, and for a moment I thought he wasn't all that happy to see me, because when he saw me he looked like he'd missed a step going downstairs. I got this awful feeling that when I went to hug him, he'd turn his back on me, with that empty look in his eyes like he didn't even recognize me. But then it was all okay. Granger got this sour expression on her face and dragged Harry away (why don't those two start going out?), and Ron and I were together like always.

Except, he wasn't smiling. The thing I had missed most about Ron was that spontaneous, wide, no-holds-barred grin, and I just wasn't seeing it, that first day back in the Common Room. I asked him what was wrong and he said nothing, but he was kind of looking over my shoulder. That was weird too; before, he used to look in my eyes when he talked, and I'd just about die. That day, he always seemed to be looking at something else, his eyes roving, looking out the window or across the room or fiddling with a piece of parchment or staring at his shoes. It was all right when we were kissing, but when we weren't, he wasn't looking at me at all.

And he still wasn't smiling.

It's all okay now, though. Like I told Violet, all we needed was some alone time, which we definitely got over the next couple of weeks. Every Saturday when he didn't have Quidditch practice (he's soooooo cute in his Quidditch robes!) we'd do something together. Mostly we just found empty classrooms and…well…hung out. You know. But it's hard to catch him lately when he's not studying or practicing Quidditch. I think he even practices when the rest of the team's not around, because one time when Ron told me he couldn't see me because he had practice, I saw Harry walking down the hall with Ginny about five minutes later, and he didn't look like he was hurrying to practice. Poor Ron, he's got so little confidence in his abilities! I try to tell him he's the best Quidditch keeper I've ever seen, but he just says, "You haven't seen that many," and scowls. And I laugh, like I always do.

The other day he did something really sweet. I was studying at the big table in the Common Room, and he came up behind me and kissed me on the cheek! It's been a long time since he's done something like that. I think I squealed at him, I was so surprised and pleased. When I turned around he wasn't looking down at me, but across the room at something else. It might have been Harry, or Granger. He looked angry, like he was daring someone to do something.

But it's all okay, really.

Violet asked me two questions, when I was home. She asked the first one on the first day of vacation, after I'd told her all about me and Ron: "Don't you two ever just talk?" So silly. Like we'd have time! With practice and studying and…snogging. And she asked the second question on the last day of vacation, when we were both packing our trunks, she to go back to the city and me to go back to Hogwarts. The second question was, "Are you sure you're both happy?"

Of course I'm sure.

Why else would he get that adorable, super-red face the moment he sees me every day? Violet doesn't know what she's talking about. He's obviously happy, because he smiles a lot now. Well, maybe not a lot. But he always smiles back when I smile at him, and that's something. Whenever I catch him not smiling, I ask him what he's thinking about, and I make the pouty face at him because way back when we first started going out, he told me that when I made the pouty face at him he couldn't say no to anything. Little did he know the weapon he was handing me! I use the pouty face all the time now. But he never mentions it.

Usually when I ask him what he's thinking, he just shrugs and frowns and looks away from whatever he was looking at a second before. "Whatever he was looking at" is usually sitting over by the fire with Harry, when she's in the same room with us at all, which is practically never.

I know what Violet would say. Don't think I don't know! I'm not stupid, despite what she and a lot of other people think. I know how Ron and Granger feel about each other. Most of us knew it before they did. Fortunately, the "thing" with Granger is something that Ron will probably never admit to himself, because she's…well…she's not as pretty as me.

Now you're going to think I'm really mean, so I've got to explain what I meant by that. I am pretty in the traditional way that teenage boys think of "pretty:" long shiny hair (thank you, Sleakeasy's Hair Potion), lots of eye makeup and flavored lipstick, and, well, um, let's just say I'm not small-boned. I know all this, and I use it to my advantage. Boys are not unlike birds in this way: they like bright, shiny objects, colorful noisy things that wiggle and coo. They like girls who smile in a flashy way and shower attention on them.

Granger, on the other hand, is pretty in a not-so-traditional way, in a way that teenage boys, unfortunately, do not usually notice until it is too late. She has this marvelous, thick curly hair and enormous brown eyes with long lashes I would kill for, and she has this smooth, white skin that looks like ivory. She doesn't wear makeup and she doesn't dress like she cares about what she's wearing, but she has an easy way of moving and a quick, generous smile that lights up her whole face. These are all things that should have caught Ron's attention long ago, but because he is a teenage boy and because she is not (yet) a shiny object, he didn't.

And when it started, that's all I was trying to do: attract his attention. I wanted a boyfriend, and more specifically, I wanted the klutz-turned-Quidditch-star as a boyfriend. I've always thought he was cute in a general sort of way, but toward the end of last year I started noticing other things: the way his hair blows back from his forehead when he's flying, and the easy way he grins, and most importantly, his kind and gentle nature. That sounds really dumb, but it's true.

There was this one time, he probably doesn't remember it, but for some reason we were partners in Care of Magical Creatures. This was toward the end of last year, after we'd finished doing unicorns, and Hagrid was reviewing Nifflers with us. Ron has this thing for Nifflers, thinks they're adorable, and as soon as we got ours he kind of cupped it in his arms and held it like a baby, and started talking to it in a low voice. I don't even think he realized he was doing it. And I couldn't stop looking at his hands, the long fingers and the palms probably twice as big as mine, the fingertips roughened from hard play, yet he was holding that little creature so gently, like he would never hurt it for the world.

I'd never looked at him that way before; he'd always just been this boy I knew.

I reached out to pet the creature in his arms, and I started to say how the Nifflers reminded me of my rabbits, and my hand brushed his and we kind of looked at each other, half-scared and half-curious. And I could tell that he was thinking the same thing: how he'd never looked at me that way before, and how I'd always just been this girl he knew but didn't think that much about, and how, really, I was all-right-looking. Everything he feels shows on his face.

That's how it started. And now, yes, I admit it: I love him. I told Violet that one night and she rolled her eyes at me, but it's true: I love him.

I told him so, just before Christmas break. I said, "I love you," just like that. I hadn't planned on saying it; it just came out. We were sitting at the top of a stone stairwell in the middle of the night, and he had his arm around me and he was staring off into space, the way he does a lot of the time now, and I was trying to study him in the dark but I couldn't make out his eyes, and all of a sudden I just… said it.

And he didn't say anything back, and I wondered whether I'd said it out loud or only just thought it. Then he cleared his throat kind of loudly and looked away and said we should probably be getting back, which meant either I hadn't said it out loud, or he didn't want to answer.

And when whole minutes passed and he didn't answer me, I felt shadowy and numb and not quite there. We got up to walk back to the Common Room a bit later, and we still had our arms around each other but it felt like we were miles apart. We didn't say anything, and it was actually one of the first times since we'd been together that we weren't either talking or kissing.

I couldn't look at him; I just stared straight ahead down the hallway at this portrait I've always liked, of a mother and her baby. It's kind of high up near the ceiling, near the corner before you turn left to reach the Fat Lady's portrait. As we got closer I saw for the first time—although I've seen the picture a million times before--that the mother was looking down at the baby with such love, and such sadness; she even had tears in her eyes. Tears that, in that funny way of paintings here in the magical world, will never fall down her face, but will glisten there in her eyes forever.

I knew how she felt.

So yes, I was feeling a bit sorry for myself. I can just hear Violet snorting at me, for getting all choked up over a boy.

When we had almost reached the Common Room, though, he slipped his arm from around me and grabbed my hand and pulled me into an empty classroom. And then we were kissing again, and it was really nice…but it was different from before. More serious, maybe. Or maybe it was just my imagination, but it felt different to me. It felt, for just a little while, the way it would feel all the time, if he really loved me. If I really had his heart, the way he has mine.

Then he pulled away, and he kind of smoothed back my hair and said, "I really care about you a lot. You know that, right?"

"I know that," I said, and my heart sank right down to my feet. And we kissed again.

And that's all we ever said, really. He hasn't mentioned it since we came back from Christmas break, and I haven't mentioned it either. But it was enough for then, and it's enough for now. It's pathetic, but it's enough for me to know that he cares a little, at least.

He will waver, eventually. He will notice how much he loves her, and that will be the end of me. I know it, and Violet knows it—I can tell from the way she looked at me as we were saying goodbye—and Granger knows it, and Harry knows it too, and I think on some level even Ron knows that some day he'll throw me over for her. And because I've understood this from the beginning, it should be okay.

But it's not.

I didn't mean to fall in love, not at first. I was just trying to have fun. And I'm trying not to let it hurt me, and I'm trying to see that it's all for the best, but it hurts. It hurts so much when I catch him staring at her or thinking about her or tracing her initials into his book covers when he thinks no one's looking. It hurts when I see the faraway look in his eyes, and I realize that I'll never be the one to make him look that way. It hurts when he tries to hide it for me, and when I let him think that I haven't noticed.

I listen to myself talking sometimes, about anything, about _nothing_, and I want to be sick, or strangle myself, or roll my eyes the way Violet did. But I can't stop. If I stop for even one second, I'll have to realize the truth of all of this.

So I'll go on as long as I can, being the shiny object that he admires. I'll endure his wandering glances across the Great Hall or the Common Room or the classroom, and I'll pretend not to notice and that it doesn't bother me. I'll keep on smiling at him, being colorful and using my hair potion and then hiding it from Granger, putting on makeup every morning and dressing oh so carefully. I'll keep kissing him in front of her, and holding his hand in front of her, and making him smile as much as I can. I'll be the roommate she doesn't speak to, the one she can't even look at, and I'll pretend I can't hear her crying at night.

And I'll wait, and I'll try to be as happy as I've ever been. Because the sad truth is, I am.


End file.
